Surprise, Surprise
by The Unicorn
Summary: not good at summeries I'll think of one or someone will suggest one soon enough (BuffyHL X-over)
1. First death

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or concepts in BTVS or HL (anthough I may twist them to my own evil ends) and I'm not making any money out of this

Premise: Buffy/HL X-over 

BTVS: post _Gift. _Buffy isn't brought back to life, Willow and Tarra take over protecting Sunnydale using magic instead of hand-to-hand weapons and bring in a couple other Wiccans to help, Giles leaves them his library and returns to England, Anya and Xander break up and Xander leaves Sunnydale.

HL: Duncan didn't kill Richie. Duncan, Richie, Methos, Casandra, and Amanda together defeated the demon. Casandra Hasn't forgiven Methos and still can't stand to be anywhere near him but has acknowledged that he isn't the same person and she gave up any homicidal intentions towards him

If you like this please Review so I know you do. If you don't please review so I know what not to do next time.

Now the Story:

Surprise, Surprise Ch.1 First death

Xander tried the ignition again then when that didn't work popped the hood and got out of the car to look. 

"Car trouble, Whitey?" a voice challenged him from behind. The voice didn't sound nice or friendly, Xander decided. Judging by the look of the street this wasn't one of the better parts of Seacover so it was unlikely that anyone would come and see what was going on. So as Xander slowly turned around he fingered the foot long wooden stake under his jacket and the several small bottles of holy water in his pockets. 

Facing him were a dozen young men in black leather jackets with orange and red flames on them. Looking straight at the eyes of the one in front he was relieved to see no trace of the hunger which constantly filled a vampire "_humans, thank god. There is no way I could handle a dozen Vampires alone" _

Immediately relaxing Xander smiled "Yah, I was just going to look under the hood and see what's the matter. 

"You laughing at me Whitey?" the leader of the group demanded, drawing a pistol from his waistband. 

"No, not at all." Xander continued smiling spreading his hands in front of him while an obscure presence in the back of his head grumbled cataloging the mistakes the young man before him was making in how he handled the gun, himself and the rest of his gang. "Look I don't want any trouble why don't I just fix what's wrong with my car and get out of here no trouble for anyone." Xander began turning back towards his car "_They're not vampires, they can see I don't have anything worth robbing so there's no reason for them to bother me." _

"Don't You turn your back on me" the young man screamed and as Xander began to realize he'd made a mistake he felt a sharp blow to his shoulder followed by intense pain. 

"_I've been shot"_ Xander realized in amazement as he dropped down and rolled towards the gang. Another shot whistled over his head and then another to the side as he leaped up at the shooter his wooden stake punching up under his ribs and into the guy's heart. Xander's elbow smashed into the face of a second hood' knocking him back and breaking his nose as Xander turned to punch his stake through the chest of a third but to his surprise discovered it was firmly lodged in the first one's body and wouldn't budge.

"_Vamp-fighting instincts, You don't need to worry about recovering your weapon, since vampire turn to dust when you kill them." _Xander thought as he leaped back to avoid a knife cut from one of the hoods' kicking at the hoods knee hard enough to break it and was about to duck under a swung pipe when a shot caught him in the chest, knocking him off his feet and into oblivion.


	2. Cleaning up

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or concepts in BTVS or HL (although I may twist them to my own evil ends) and I'm not making any money out of this

Premise: Buffy/HL X-over 

BTVS: post Gift. Buffy isn't brought back to life, Willow and Tarra take over protecting Sunnydale using magic instead of hand-to-hand weapons and bring in a couple other Wiccans to help, Giles leaves them his library and returns to England, Anya and Xander break up and Xander leaves Sunnydale.

HL: Duncan didn't kill Richie. Duncan, Richie, Methos, Casandra, and Amanda together defeated the demon. Casandra Hasn't forgiven Methos and still can't stand to be anywhere near him but has acknowledged that he isn't the same person and she gave up any homicidal intentions towards him

If you like this please Review so I know you do. If you don't please review so I know what not to do next time.

Now the Story:

Surprise, Surprise Ch.2 Cleaning up

Richie Ryan loved wandering his old neighborhood although for most people it wouldn't be safe he felt no concern over his safety even walking alone in the middle of the night. Richie's confidence was based on two things. First Richie was not a normal human but rather one of those commonly called Immortals and would recover from even death in hours unless his head was cut off. The second and by far the more important reason was that over the past months since he'd returned with Duncan McCloud and Amanda from France he'd become a sort of arbitrator between the gangs. Richie achieved this position by being someone who knew intimately the workings and relations of the street life and the gangs without belonging to any faction and proving he wouldn't take anything he found to the police. So when Richie gunshots up ahead he hurried forward to see if he could stop whatever it was before it turned into an all-out war. As Richie turned the corner he saw several of the Flames, one of the black gangs in the neighborhood standing next to a beat up old dodge . "Hey, what happened?" He asked as soon as he was close enough to be heard without shouting. "The bastard killed Thomas" replied one of the teenagers. "Who killed Thomas?" Richie asked worriedly, Thomas was the Flames leader and if they became convinced some other gang had killed him they'd be planning war. "He did" someone responded and walking around the dodge Richie saw the two bodies lying on the ground. One wearing the gang's jacket was clearly Thomas and just as clearly was dead from a piece of wood as thick as a broomstick sticking all the way through him. The other was a teenager about 18 years old, wearing jeans and a turtleneck. He was also white which would make matters worse since the relations between the Flames and the white gangs were never that good and had been deteriorating in the last few weeks. Judging by the amount of blood around him he was almost certainly dead already and even if he wasn't wouldn't survive the ride to the hospital but Richie couldn't help but reach down to check his pulse. As he did he felt a faint quiver like the beginning of the Buzz."The kid's a preimmortal?" the thought flashed through his head. "Okay, What happened here?" Richie asked the gang facing him. Immediately every one of the gang members began trying to tell him what happened. After several minutes Richie managed to get what happened straight in his head _"So this guy doesn't take the gang seriously as a threat, Thomas took it as an insult and shot him after which this guy killed him and hurt Simon and his brother, got shot again and was killed. Now what do I do." _Richie thought to himself. He didn't want this preimmortal to get taken to the morgue, making his death official and almost as important having to break in to the morgue to find him. On the other hand he didn't want the gangs to think he could help them dispose of bodies or learn the tricks Duncan and Methos had taught him for disposing of bodies. After a couple of minutes staring at the bodies Richie reached a decision. "Okay. I know this guy and his family so for their sake I'll take care of it but don't you get any ideas I'll handle messes like this for you in the future." Richie stared at the gang members. Once they'd all assured him they didn't Richie continued. "Okay put both of them in the back seat and don't tell anyone about Thomas getting killed. Tell them he's hiding somewhere or ran off to join the Marines but don't say he was killed. Okay?" 

"Ah, Richie... Simon stopped him the guy's car stopped working, how you going to move it and the bodies." 

"Let me see" Richie popped the hood and looked under it. A few minutes looking revealed nothing wrong other then low oil. _"The engine must have over heated" _Richie thought. Luckily the engine had time to cool down somewhat during the fight and Richie's inquiry so by the time both bodies were loaded into the back seat the engine started just fine. Driving away Richie decided to drop of the new immortal at Duncan's before he took Thomas's body to the garden shop, to grind up with a few bags of vine clippings and fertilizer.


	3. Cleaning up part II

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or concepts in BTVS or HL (although I may twist them to my own evil ends) and I'm not making any money out of this

Premise: Buffy/HL X-over 

BTVS: post Gift. Buffy isn't brought back to life, Willow and Tarra take over protecting Sunnydale using magic instead of hand-to-hand weapons and bring in a couple other Wiccans to help, Giles leaves them his library and returns to England, Anya and Xander break up and Xander leaves Sunnydale.

HL: Duncan didn't kill Richie. Duncan, Richie, Methos, Casandra, and Amanda together defeated the demon. Casandra Hasn't forgiven Methos and still can't stand to be anywhere near him but has acknowledged that he isn't the same person and she gave up any homicidal intentions towards him

If you like this please Review so I know you do. If you don't please review so I know what not to do next time.

Now the Story:

**Surprise, surprise Ch 3: Cleaning up, part II**

Almost four hours later Richie finished scrubbing clean and was ready for whenever the pre-immortal woke from his first death. Thomas's body was reduced to part of a compost heap which would be used to fertilize the trees and bushes in the City parks. Normally Richie didn't bother with so thorough a disposal job but With Thomas being a local gang leader there was a distinct possibility that some rumor of what happened would reach the Seacover PD in which case they'd engage in an intensive search for the body so he had to make sure that no body was ever found no matter how hard they looked.

Once he'd gotten rid of the body getting rid of the evidence in the car was surprisingly easy. The only blood was in and around the back seat so a bit of gasoline from a jeri-can in the trunk of the car and an burning rag thrown on it destroyed any traces of blood and a minute with a fire extinguisher stopped the fire from destroying the car. The result looked like the car had gotten the attentions of some gang looking for fun.

So now Richie sat on the hood of the car, waiting for the new immortal, Alexander Harris according to his Drivers license to wake from his first death not wishing to risk being seen carrying a corpse anywhere. "You'd better not take three days to wake up" Richie told the corpse. Richie didn't **really **think Alexander would take anywhere near three days to revive since the only one he ever heard of taking that long was Casandra. However if he didn't revive by six he'd have to move the corpse or the city workers coming to work in the morning would see him with the corpse. Glancing at his watch Richie sighed 4:25AM. Luckily tomorrow was a Saturday and he didn't have to be up before noon to open the Dojo for the two o'clock women's self defense class since it didn't look like he'd get to sleep any time soon.

Just as Richie had resigned himself to moving the body Alexander Harris's body convulsed with a sudden intake of air into empty lungs. "5:45, If you waited any longer you'd have been waking up in the trunk of your car" Richie told him. 


	4. Rise and Shine?

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or concepts in BTVS or HL (although I may twist them to my own evil ends) and I'm not making any money out of this

Premise: Buffy/HL X-over

BTVS: post Gift. Buffy isn't brought back to life, Willow and Tarra take over protecting Sunnydale using magic instead of hand-to-hand weapons and bring in a couple other Wiccans to help, Giles leaves them his library and returns to England, Anya and Xander break up and Xander leaves Sunnydale.

HL: Duncan didn't kill Richie. Duncan, Richie, Methos, Casandra, and Amanda together defeated the demon. Casandra Hasn't forgiven Methos and still can't stand to be anywhere near him but has acknowledged that he isn't the same person and she gave up any homicidal intentions towards him

If you like this please Review so I know you do. If you don't please review so I know what not to do next time.

Now the Story:

**Surprise, surprise Ch 4: Rise and...shine?**

Xander took a large gasping breath feeling as if he'd been drowning and opened his eyes.

What he saw surprised him as he wasn't laying in a hospital bed, or on the sidewalk where he fought the gangsters. He was laying on a large plastic sheet on a concrete floor next to some large machinery with a young man siting on the hood of Xander's beat up car watching him.

"5:45, If you waited any longer you'd have been waking up in the trunk of your car" The young man said as he saw Xander looking at him. At that moment Xander realized he was sensing the young man wasn't human. Xander didn't have a Slayer's 'supernatural radar but after bumping into every sort of nasty, evil, or simply non-human critter in five years of fighting on the hellmouth he'd developed a pretty accurate instinct and right now he sensed some sort of energy coming from the young man in front of him.

"Oh, shit." Xander muttered and _moved. _He hurt all over, especially his shoulder and chest but if you let pain stop you the nasty critter which hurt you was going to kill you. So Xander ignored the feeling of molten lead being poured on his chest and the spikes of pain whenever he moved his shoulder, rolled towards the guy and leapt up, graping the guy's right ankle and yanking up and to the left as he did. The guy had began to say something but Xander was too busy ignoring the pain to pay attention to anything he didn't have to, like whatever threat, or spell or whatever the guy had begun. Whatever it was Xander's yanking his ankle as he leaped up had stopped it and sent him rolling on the concrete floor.

A glance into the car showed that the keys were in the ignition and Xander half leapt, half fell into the car and with a quick prayer to any gods out there twisted the key. On the second try the engine started. Xander put it into gear and twisted the wheel hard to the right to turn the car in the limited space he had. Despite the pain Xander grinned as he felt the car crunch, over the strange guy's body. Even a master vampire would take several minutes to heal broken bones and ruptured organs enough to chase him. Completing the turn, Xander pointed his car at the open exit , shifted gears and accelerated out of the building. Hopefully by the time whatever it was that had caught him healed enough to chase him he'd be too far away for it to track him.

As soon as he was sure he'd shook off the creature he'd get a motel room and call Willow and Giles. One of them will be able to find what that guy was and tell him how to deal with it. "_Dammit! I was trying to get away from all the supernatural stuff." _Xander thought to himself, slaming his hand against the steering wheel as he drove down the street.


	5. Phone Calls

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or concepts in BTVS or HL (although I may twist them to my own evil ends) and I'm not making any money out of this

Premise: Buffy/HL X-over

BTVS: post Gift. Buffy isn't brought back to life, Willow and Tarra take over protecting Sunnydale using magic instead of hand-to-hand weapons and bring in a couple other Wiccans to help, Giles leaves them his library and returns to England, Anya and Xander break up and Xander leaves Sunnydale.

HL: Duncan didn't kill Richie. Duncan, Richie, Methos, Casandra, and Amanda together defeated the demon. Casandra Hasn't forgiven Methos and still can't stand to be anywhere near him but has acknowledged that he isn't the same person and she gave up any homicidal intentions towards him

If you like this please Review so I know you do. If you don't please review so I know what not to do next time.

Now the Story:

**Surprise, surprise Ch 5: Phone calls **

After half a dozen rings Meathos fumbled for the phone, picked it up and hung up. The second time Methos snarled into the phone "Go Away!" before hanging up. The third time the phone rang he decided to actually answer the phone since someone thought it was so urgent to get hold of him. "Who ever you are you better have a good reason for calling me so early in the freaking morning!" He snarled into the phone.

"Adam I need a lift from behind the Seacover municipal recycling center." Richie said quickly before Methos could hang up the phone again. "I got in some trouble and my back's broken. I need you to give me a lift home."

"Ben gamal h'olea calevet!" Adam cursed. "Why couldn't you wait to get into trouble when McClaud's here to rescue you. Or at least wait till a more reasonable hour." Meathos complained pointlessly. What sort of trouble aww "If I'd waited the insane new immortal would have had a very public death and the way he acted when he recovered from his first death an even more public waking which would have had you, me, mac and every other immortal in the city running around for a week doing damage control." Richie answered acidly. "So you going to pick me up?"

"Yah. I'll be there in fifteen minutes or less, if only so that you can tell me the entire story about the insane newbie you found." Adam replied much more cheerfully. "This sounds like the kind of story worth getting out of bed for."

On that note the two Immortals hung up the phone.

It took Xander nearly ten minutes of random turns, stops and starts to become convinced he wasn't being followed. As soon as he was he stopped the car and looked it over. The back seat was torched but the fire extinguisher he kept under the seat was gone and there were remains of powder from the fire extinguisher on the front seat suggesting that someone had put out the fire. The Equipment in the trunk was untouched and Xander pushed aside his bags and pulled out his ax and three stakes from the hidden compartment in the trunk. He put one of the stakes in the small sheath he'd sown into his jacket and stuck the other two in his belt along his back where they wouldn't be seen unless someone was looking for them. The ax ht place against the passenger seat next to him with it's head on the car floor. It would be a bit difficult to explain if he was stopped by a cop but better that then not having it if whatever that thing that was interested in him caught up to him.

Once Xander was satisfied with his weapon arrangements he started off again this time in search of a cheap motel. After more then an hour and a half Xander finally managed to get to the section of the city where he could find a cheap motel. Two hours after he'd run over whatever the thing that had caught him Xander was sitting in a motel room trying to figure out what to do next.

Calling Willow or Giles were obvious possibilities but since he didn't have Giles's phone that left Willow and Xander was reluctant to call her early in the morning as he knew she'd have been up till nearly dawn either preparing magic traps for demons and vampires around Sunnydale, clearing up those which had been rather messy, or running her new Internet software company. For some reason both computer geeks and demons seemed to work mostly at night.

So unless the creature or one of it's buddies caught up he'd wait till noon to call Willow. In the meantime he'd try and sort out what he knew. He'd had his car break down but it was now working fine, or as fine as it ever had since he got it. This didn't mean that there was anything 'hellmouthy' about the break down as the car had acted up before and then started working again just fine after it had cooled down a bit.

Then he'd gotten into a fight with some gang which in hind sight was because the gang leader picked up on the fact that he didn't think they were a danger and took it as an insult. _ "Humans can also be dangerous" _Xander reminded himself. Forgetting that was what got him in this trouble. The gang leader shot him in the shoulder and... Xander's internal review of past events stuttered to a halt. He remembered being hit in the shoulder. He remembered the pain and the spray of blood and the wrenching agony as he used that arm to fight the hoods. He didn't however feel like someone who'd been shot should feel.

Checking His shirt and jacket Xander found two holes in the shirt. One in the shoulder and one in the middle of the chest and one hole in the jacket's shoulder. The shirt was also soaked in blood around the hole in the shoulder and a few stains around the one in the chest. What he didn't find was any scars or signs he'd been hurt. Not even the bruises he'd have expected given how he felt when he ran away from the creature that had taken him.

This changed the situation. He could no longer afford to wait until a reasonable hour to call willow. Picking up the phone he dialed the number he still thought of as Buffy's number the phone was picked up on the first ring and Dawn's voice began to inform him he'd reached the offices of Will o' the Wisp computer resources. Xander didn't bother waiting for the message to run through telling him their office hours and offering to get back to him if he left a message. Instead he hit the asterix sign three times then 666 then the number sign. The automated phone system Willow and Dawn set up accepted the emergency code and after only two rings a breathless Willow answered the phone.

"Yes? What happened? Xander? Are you ok? Where's the apocalypse?"

"Slow down Willow." Xander told her. "I'm in Seacover, I don't think there's an apocalypse but I don't know what happened."


End file.
